Aunt Mary Jane

When Mary Jane went to see a doctor about a misaligned toe, he said it would need surgery. She laughed and said, “No, thank you,” that she was 68 and probably wouldn’t need it for more than about 20 more years anyhow.

Whoops. She’s now 88 and is still walking on the same pair of feet. She has developed a bit of a “dowager’s hump,” and her eyes are starting to give her trouble, but otherwise she’s in better shape than I am.

Mary Jane is the last survivor of my parents’ generation. A widow since 1971, she was married to my mother’s youngest brother, and is the mother of five of my six Wilson cousins.

My cousins are owners and operators of Wilson Paving in Carlisle, Pa. and enjoy a reputation for honesty and dependability. The oldest is on medical disability, the next three run various aspects of the business. The youngest is the only female, Fern, a “freelance” chef widely admired by foodies in the Harrisburg and West Shore area.

But back to Aunt Jane and Uncle Frank.

He fell in love with airplanes, learned to fly, taught others, was part of the barnstorming scene that World War II interrupted. Frank shrugged and turned his little airfield near Carlisle into a training school for the U.S. Army Air Corps.

After the war, materials were hard to come by. Frank found it easier to make and pour his own asphalt, both on the runways of Wilson Field and on the driveway of his home later, and launched the paving business that still supports his family.

Mary Jane told me years later how they met. She was saving her money for a cross-country train trip when the war broke out and curtailed travel. So she decided on flying lessons instead, at Wilson Field.

Her instructor said she was hopeless, couldn't learn, and Frank stuck up for her, saying she just had a very light touch. He told her later that she impressed him because, of all the young women hanging around the airport, she was the only one who refused a cigarette. He was a reformed smoker, and fanatic about it.

They married. Frank was 40, Jane 16 years younger. He bought a hilltop surrounded by Cumberland County's cornfields, and on top of it they built – mostly by hand – a house of flagstone and timber, with a quarter-mile long straight driveway where his pals could land their airplanes.

I remember as a child walking on the foundation of that house and thinking it would be too small if they ever had children.

That house. From its hilltop above the world, you can see summer storms smudging the horizon, lightning blazing, corn lying flat before the wind – while the sun shines and the corn stands serene beside the long driveway.

I was there the night a neighbor's barn burned two miles away. It was like watching from above the earth, first a thin column of smoke, then billowing flames, while fire trucks and volunteers converged, lights visible and sirens audible from great distances.

I remember the arrival of each of Mary Jane's children. Year after year: “Well, Mary Jane had another boy.” Four sons in four years, then Fern.

Mary Jane was quiet and thoughtful, absolutely unflappable, always with time to visit despite babies underfoot and her work keeping the books for the company. She kept her hair pulled back in a tight bun – I've never seen it any other way – and managed the sprawling house that replicated the Southwestern style she and Frank had admired in their travels.

Frank died suddenly in 1971, the youngest of the Wilsons, the second to die. One by one, death claimed them all, and their spouses. Mom was the last of the siblings. Mary Jane, Frank’s widow, survived them all.

It was she who checked out nursing homes, drove to radiation treatments, made arrangements for her husband's people, as well as for a beloved daughter-in-law. The youngest by far, she became the matriarch.

Last week when we drove up to visit, I had the same moment of disbelief: That green stained wood and stone house, more like a spaceship hovering gently, still there, about 55 years now, its roof needing work, the stain a bit faded.

And Mary Jane? As usual, she met us in her big kitchen, a little smaller now, but just as pleasant. She’ll be 89 in May.

Eighty-nine! Eighty-nine is old. Mary Jane is not. She still works the books part-time, still exudes a curious matter-of-fact vivacity, still lives alone in her hilltop house.

Mary Jane, when I wrote about you 10 or so years ago, I said I had probably never told you how much you mean to me. How very much.

Like you, that has not changed. I thank God you have been part of my life.

Happy New Year, dear friend, and God bless.